CB1, DC3M, CG, JH, RH2, TK(ass, documentation), TW1, AW
v San Marino
Going into this game I had a lot of belief, I had a good feeling, we had this …
And then…
1 nil down, after literally 20 seconds! Followed very quickly by another 2 in the back of our net. And for their third goal they really carved us wide open, shit was not looking good, at all! In these sort of situations, when the graph is going in a highly non-optimal direction, a team needs a new variable in the equation, that variable is leadership, and that leadership is what Captain Rhian Hinkley brought to the casio futsal graphing calculator. He freaking grabbed the calculator out of fortune’s grubby mits and punched “55378008” into that shit! Giller had already found him with long balls on a number of occasions, but this time it was side kick, dead ball, almost a corner, but from our end of the court, it was coming in low and hard another was the Captains signature glancing header, the one which leaves the opposition goalie sort of slack jawed and gawping, hell yeah! This was folllowed almost immediately by another, Chasmund taking a very* quick corner, Rhian timed his run perfectly perfectly and slotting past the keeper, game freaking on. Rhian could have had probably the Nannas quickest ever hat-trick, picking up a loose ball near the halfway line and barrelling towards goal, one on one with the keeper he put it fractionally wide.
To a man the Nannas were hustling, running, tracking back. We were in this. And we were on it! Out third came from another corner, Jim spotting the authors rather unco run toward the near post, he put it on a plate, the author scuffed at the plate with his foot cutlery but somehow managed to direct in the general direction of the goal. Both he and Jim watching for what seemed an eternity as it slowly rolled it into the corner.
So it was either 3-3 or 3-4 at half time. I can’t remember. It was tight. As it should always be kept!
You’d think that after 25 years the Nannas would have subbing totally nailed right? Wrong! Literally all you need to do is remember 1 thing, the identity of the person you take off, that’s it, that’s all there is to it, but no, I came off and it was chaos, Chassy was trying to concoct a sub sheet from various dubious testimonies, with the clock ticking, in a freaking final! I remember the famous Wesley grand final win of 2008** (which I think Kondo also documented!) we had the subs worked out to within an inch of bee’s díck, with actual positions and shit, not this final baby, it was a real-time mid-game complete overhaul rework clusterfuck! But maybe that was the refocus we needed, maybe it was the hand of destiny making the necessary tweaks… in any case Chasbenis ran back onto the court with an extra shot of cortisol, he immediately chased down a lose ball, fully swatted aside the guy who tried to tackle him, like literally onto the floor, and then slammed the ball into the bottom left corner. 4-4 bitches!
We were totally in this and the opposition could sense it too. They got another and for a while held us to 4-5. We were hard in the tackle and in the hustle but they seemed happy to keep protect their lead, passing it around the back, and it was working, until it didn’t. Tao kept harrying one guy almost into the corner of his own goal before picking his pocket on the byline, turning and slotting in at the near post, freaking hell freaking yeah! This seemed to totally flummox their defence and our next two goals were from defensive errors gifting position in very favourable shooting positions, the author duly obliged with a couple of poacher’s toe pokes. 7-5, we just needed to hang on for another 4 minutes. I was on the sideline at this point and it was nerve racking, but actually not that nerve wracking, we slowed it down, Andy was everywhere, blocking everything, Tao put in a goal saving tackle, Giller made yet more stops, we slowed it down more, we put it to bed, we freaking killed it!
2nd Division comeback Captains calculator champions… after 25 years, still got it.
* quite possibly illegal
** when the freak was that, 2008, 2011? It was in the brief but precious “Fraser Window” when Guy was momentarily back in Melbourne
*** from the late 1900s, the digits 55378008 on a 7 segment LCD calculator† viewed upside down spells “boobless”, classic!
† Technically not a graphing calculator
post script: a special note for Takeshi Kondo who was in attendance in a dual role as Ass Coach and as Chief Documentation Officer, kudos Takeshi! nb. we really need to see that video from 2008, 2011, whenever, it was such a good game!
Also for the record, the author was awarded Player of the Final, pipping Giller at the post.
ABKIT!